BEIJING — Western journalists have lately been tolerated in China, if grudgingly, but the spread of revolution in the Middle East has prompted the authorities here to adopt a more familiar tack: suddenly, foreign reporters are being tracked and detained in the same manner — though hardly as roughly — as political dissidents.

On Sunday, about a dozen European and Japanese journalists in Shanghai were herded into an underground bunkerlike room and kept for two hours after they sought to monitor the response to calls on an anonymous Internet site for Chinese citizens to conduct a “strolling” protest against the government outside the Peace Cinema, near Peace Square in Shanghai.

… David Bandurski, an analyst at the China Media Project of the University of Hong Kong, said: “They have gone into control mode once again. What we are seeing now, in the short term, is China is closing in on itself, because it doesn’t have another answer or response.”

He added: “Intimidation of journalists is the classic response.” …

Such news always reminds us of this scene and this nagging question: Why did our Society make this deal?

No doubt true. And not necessarily a bad reason. But I think it’s a short-term gain and a longer-term loss. I can hear the economists out there saying, “Pal, in the ‘long run’ we’re all dead.” (John Maynard Keynes) Still, the editorial trade-offs we’re making are a mistake, IMHO. … Thanks for your comment, Therese. – A

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About

Hi. I'm Alan Mairson. I'm a freelance journalist based in Bethesda, Maryland; a former staff writer & editor for National Geographic magazine; and a member & lifelong fan of the National Geographic Society. For details about this project, please check out our inaugural post. For more about my advisers & me, see this. To feel the tight financial grip that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exerts on the National Geographic Society, peek at these tax returns. And if you'd like to share ideas, questions, or suggestions — or if you just want to heckle :-) — please contact me here. Thanks for stopping by.